5 Ways to Identify Festive Stress and Cope With It

The festive season is all about enthusiasm, happiness, and merriment. However, not everyone gets to taste the positive-only facet of it. Many people find it difficult to deal with festivity as it brings a lot of stress along with all the gala.

Have you ever felt mentally and physically drained during festivals? Perhaps, yes.

Let us tell you that it is normal to feel the stress of managing multiple tasks, frequent gatherings, hectic schedules, loud noises, and hustle-bustle. You are not alone in this. Many people feel the way you do.

In this article, we will identify the stress related to festivals like Diwali and the ways to cope with it.

Discover the stress around festivity

The compulsion to feel the festive pleasure

Diwali is an occasion when we host family gatherings to spend quality time together. Such events make us feel happy but now everyone construes it the same way. Many people feel the pressure to be all-smiling while tackling a lot within. The pressure of meeting official targets, the pendency, extra expenditure, fatigue - everything contributes to stress. These situations could be even more frustrating because you got to wear a fake smile throughout the festive season.

Tons of tasks

People get occupied with multiple tasks even weeks before Diwali. Shopping for new clothes, home decoratives, and gifts, home cleaning, hosting get-togethers, distributing gifts among friends and family - it all remains quite tedious for almost everyone. Balancing official and domestic work gets challenging during the festive season and that increases the stress level manifold.

Adverse effects on health and food habits

Frequent parties surge the consumption of junk and unhealthy food. Late-night get-togethers and the urge to feast on delicacies result in overeating and abnormal weight gain. Besides, inadequate sleep further disturbs your internal body balance, leaving you tired throughout the day. The routine of senior citizens and kids also gets hampered due to festive meetings.

Overspending due to social media influence

Social media influence could hit your pockets hard. In the race to compete with others by watching their glamorous stories and reels around festivity, you may end up spending a huge chunk of your hard-earned money - just to show off. You may feel the #fomo of not celebrating Diwali as joyfully as your peers and relatives, but that is much better than stressing yourself out for financial reasons.

A heap of mixed emotions

The past few years have been quite tough for the entire world. Along with the financial crisis, people have lost their loved ones to the pandemic. Family gatherings for many feel traumatic as they tend to miss their loved ones much more. Seeing others enjoying themselves with their parents, siblings, or friends might make many feel depressed and lonely.

While festivals are an escape from the monotonous life, they can be harsh for many. So we need to strike the right balance of emotions, work, finances, celebrations, and food to relish these special moments sans stress.

Let us explore simple ways to cope with festive stress in a natural and effective manner. Read along.

5 ways to prevent festive stress and sadness

Confess your feelings and emotions

There is no harm in acknowledging your state of mind at any point in time. It rather becomes more critical to identify how your feel internally during festivals. You may have been loaded with mixed emotions, feeling sad or depressed sometimes due to past experiences or simply for no reason. It is all right to feel anxious, to cry, to shout, and release your frustrations.

Reach out to the people you like to spend time with

Whenever you feel lonely, step out to meet like-minded people. Speak your heart out to someone you completely trust. Or do the things that make you feel better like watching films, listening to music, relishing coffee at your favourite cafe, etc. Slowing down and having ‘me time’ to get comfortable is more than necessary during festivals.

Maintain a budget and adhere to it

Irrespective of what others are doing, learn to make your plans within your pocket. Don’t find happiness in expensive gifts. Instead switch to meaningful and conscious gifting that includes handmade, organic, and personalized gifts. And if you are a philanthropist then the best way to celebrate Diwali is to make the underprivileged people happy with food or gifts.

Avoid overeating and late-night snacking

Though festivity brings an intolerable craving for snacks and sweets, you need to maintain eating discipline. Savour the festive feast but keep the platter more on the healthier side. Add lots of fruits and salad to your diet and replace sugar with jaggery or honey. Don’t forget to stay hydrated and sleep well in order to enjoy the festival to the fullest.

We hope our recommendations would help you cope with the festive stress you feel while hoping between routine life and festivals.